10 Awesome Aussie Indie Games You Need to See

PAX Australia was held for the first time last weekend, and it was a veritable mecca for Australia’s burgeoning indie scene. What impressed? A heap of stuff! We'll try and cover off everything over the coming months, but for the moment, here are ten Aussie-developed indie games you need to have on your radar.

Muse

Why it looks cool: I'm a huge fan of any games that incorporate music creation into the gameplay, and that's basically Muse's mission statement. You cruise around a colourful, dream-like underwater world, collecting musical creatures that represent elements of the track you're building - kickdrum, hats, bass, melody lines etc. These elements join you as you explore, giving you a visual representation of the music that's playing. The team at Current Circus had a bad-ass three screen set-up running at PAX, but what we're most excited about is collaborative music creation via online co-op or a second screen (imagine having effects, EQs, channel kill-switches etc etc on a tablet) and seeing what the community can come up with once this is in the wild. - Cam

Jellyfish have got to be acid lines, right?

Assault Android Cactus

Why it looks cool: Do you like stylish twin-stick arcade action? Do you like the feeling of constantly wobbling on the precipice of failure? Do you like grinding your teeth to dust in an effort to stay alive? Then Assault Android Cactus is for you! Made by Witch Beam in Brisbane, Assault Android Cactus is a freakishly relentless twin-stick shooter that’s as finely tuned as Usain Bolt’s calf muscles. It’s both hard as hell and extremely accessible, giving you unlimited lives but limited ‘battery power’ which forces you to kill enemies and grab pick-ups in order to power up. Enemy presence is relentless from all sides, meaning you’re constantly dodging and firing while levels shift and distort around you. The cumulative gameplay is an adrenaline shot to the heart with a soundtrack that echoes its intensity. It's coming later this year. - Lucy

Bullet heaven or bullet hell? You decide.

Metal Dead: Encore

The one-sentence Hollywood-style pitch: Zombies meets metal meets point and click. What’s not to love?

Why it looks cool: A direct sequel to a game we’d never heard of until now, Metal Dead: Encore is an old school point and click comedy with a simple a yet hilariously expressive animation style – think Invader Zim or Adventure Time - an entirely original metal soundtrack and a wickedly sharp script. If a hand-drawn animated comedy romp through a zombie infested wasteland ruled by a genetically mutated landshark doesn’t appeal to you, you may very well be dead inside. – Lucy

Goddamn this looks cool.

Colossatron: Massive World Threat

Why it looks cool: Brisbane-based Halfbrick, already one of the biggest wheels at the iOS cracker factory, brought its upcoming Colossatron: Massive World Threat to PAX Aus. Like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride before it, Colossatron is bright, frenetic, and furiously addictive. Underneath the mid-’90s Saturday morning cartoon presentation the concept is simple: extend your snaking Colossatron by augmenting it with the various coloured body pods that appear on screen. Chaining certain pods together, like three of the same colour, will create powerful weapons that will tear through the city and its puny fleshbag defenders. The Colossatron moves and fires automatically, although you can tap and hold the screen to fire a focussed salvo that will shred the tanks and bombers General Moustache has mobilised against you. Its price and release date are still unknown, but it feels like it could be a winner. - Luke

You had us at General Moustache.

Framed

Why it looks cool: At PAX Aus, whenever somebody asked you to suggest something interesting for them to see, Framed is the game you pointed them towards. Fundamentally a puzzle game, Framed tasks players with arranging a sequence of individual comic panels in a way that will allow the onscreen character to, more or less, survive the page. In a certain arrangement, for instance, one attempt may see your character sprung by a cop and filled with lead. By adjusting the flow of the action and massaging the position of a few frames, however, you may find your character is able to sneak up behind the cop and knock him out. Framed is intriguing, original, and thoroughly rewards experimentation. Even when you fail you can see why. - Luke

Some sequences are very much like a puzzle platformer, others rely more on trial and error.